Boeing makes final 2013 787 delivery push

Boeing has started making its final push to deliver as many commercial jets as possible before the and of the year.  As far as the 787, Boeing has thus far delivered 6 aircraft in December, 16 for the 4th quarter, 60 for 2013 and 109 overall since deliveries began over 2 years ago.  This includes ZA187 (LN 125, JA833J) for Japan Airlines which is contractually delivered but has not made its delivery flight for unknown reasons.  It is expected to flyaway to Tokyo in the next few days.

There are still a number of 787s that are ready of delivery including a trio for China Southern Airlines.  It's been a while since these airplanes have taken a flight but I believe the reason is so Boeing and China Southern can have a bit of a splash and conduct a triple delivery on one day prior to year end.  Boeing will also deliver one more to QANTAS (Jetstar) which has had 4 flights (maybe one or two more needed) and will deliver the first 787 to be configured as a business jet to the UAE (via ILFC).

It stands to reason that Boeing can deliver 65 787s this year.  Their guidance is over 60, thus they'll clearly meet their guidance.

As far as production is concerned, it looks as if Boeing is right now producing at about 9 aircraft/month. There was a hiccup due to a mishap (don't have details) on the main fuselage section for ZA388 (LN 154) for China Southern.  that aircraft was loaded today but it did set back the production schedule, according to my calculations, by 18 days.  ZA244 (LN 158) for Air India, leap-frogged over ZA388 and started final assembly before ZA388. ZA388 was originally supposed to start final assembly around November 19th. ZA244 was loaded into POS 1 on December 7...an 18 day gap between planned and actual loading of the fuselage sections and an approximately 1 month gap between the loading of ZA244 and ZA472 (LN 150) for Qatar Airways.  Boeing Charleston is loading one aircraft approximately every 14 to 15 days or about 2/month. For the record, Jack Jones, VP and general manager of Boeing Charleston says that they are tracking to plan in terms of 787 production.  Boeing is loading a 787 roughly every 4 days at Everett and that rate should get a little bit faster.  Later on when Charleston is ready to go to 3/month, we should see the period between loadings go up slightly to about 1 airplane ever four and a quarter days.

One interesting thing to note is production quality of the 787 coming off the assembly lines.  One way to measure this is to see how many test flights, on average, a Everett-built 787 makes before delivery and compare that to the number of test flights that a Charleston-built 787 makes.  Taking out the 2 ferry flights that Boeing has to make to and from Ft. Worth for painting, I find that Charleston-built 787s fly an average of 6.25 flights before they are delivered while Everett-built 787s fly an average of 5.10 flights before delivery.  Really just one flight more which in the grand scheme of things is not a whole lot. 

A bit of programming note.  I will post a 787 2013 year in review around the end of the month or early in January followed by a 2014 look ahead for the program.

Here are couple of links from Boeing's media day at Boeing Charleston:

Post and Courier photo gallery

Post and Courier Article

Charleston Business Journal Article

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Mishap with L/N 154 mid body fuselage section forces Boeing to re-shuffle final assembly order at Charleston

According to sources, a mishap while assembling the mid body fuselage for ZA388 (L/N 154) for China Southern Airlines forced Boeing to re-shuffle the firing order at Boeing Charleston.  Details are unknown but the mishap, which took place in building 88-20, caused extensive damage to the mid body fuselage section. The damage was severe enough that Boeing had to pull manufacturing techs from the final assembly line to help with the re-work with many technicians putting in overtime to get this fuselage section completed.  This airplane was scheduled to start final assembly during the 3rd week of November but it was pushed back to the first week of December.  Boeing, however, was unable to complete the re-work in time and forced the re-shuffling of the final assembly order. 

Currently, ZA 244 (L/N 158, VT-ANP) for Air India is loaded in position 1 in 88-30 while the re-work in 88-20 continues and is expected to be completed shortly. 

After inspection and review of all the re-work on mid body for L/N 154, it should enter final assembly later this month. 

Boeing integrates different fuselage sections built in Japan and Italy into one large main fuselage section in the 88-20 building.

This incident also has played havoc with Boeing's 787 final assembly schedule for Charleston as the final assembly of follow 787 in Charleston had to be pushed back.  Subsequently, Boeing MTs in Charleston may have to put in overtime in order to make up the lost time and get the schedule back on track.

Lastly, Boeing did fly a 787 out of Charleston to be painted.  While Boeing regularly does this, the difference was the aircraft was flown to Portland, OR where the company does have paint facilities and not to Ft. Worth.  It was pointed out by a reader that this may be due to the severe winter weather being experienced in Texas.  Boeing has a contract with Leading Edge Completions of Ft. Worth, Tx. to paint all Charleston built 787s. There still is one 787 (ZA469, L/N 129, A7-BCH) for Qatar Airways at Leading Edge which flew there three weeks ago.  Either the weather has delayed its return or there was some issue with the paint job that Qatar objected to or there was technical issue with the aircraft itself.

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